Breathe Again
by almcvay1
Summary: Short Lizzie character study, a little song inspired, a little Lizzington inspired.
1. Chapter 1

She found her truth in a hail storm of metal and gunpowder. Her lesson in the soft crack of a rifle shot. Her heart in his blood covering her hands.

She's sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in a makeshift hospital, alone with her thoughts and a bottle of water that she is beginning to wish would become wine. Reddington is in surgery, as the doctors work to fix the mistakes that she made. What could she have been thinking, meeting him on an open street? Could she have been any more thoughtless?

Those thoughts about it being her fault make her inpatient, she gets up and starts to pace. One thing, which she should have learned long before now, is that it's not always about her. She's begun to see a pattern emerge when these things happen. When something happens because of her or more specifically because of her presence in Red's life, or because of the nature of her job in its current state, she begins to spin the events into being about her, either because of who she is (which she can't remember) or something she did or didn't do. Whatever happens, whoever suffers, somehow, it's all about Liz.

She doesn't want to be that person anymore. She has learned more about herself, written in the blood of people she loves, than she ever imagined knowing. One moment, she was willing to walk away from Raymond Reddington, and now she cannot imagine never being able to see that face again. He kept secrets, he kept so many secrets; from her and likely from himself. She knew why he kept his life compartmentalized, portable; like so many boxes in a basement just waiting for moving day. Those secrets had begun to hurt, to burn where they touched her heart. Though she may understand why they were kept, it didn't make them any less apt to scar once the truth would out.

She'd only meant to ask about the passports. Tom had told her that Red had supplied them. Lizzie could connect the dots easily enough. The sociopath she had married had turned on his employer, very much like he had turned on her, it didn't really surprise her. To have it said plainly though, by Red, that yes he had hired Tom in the first place, knowing that she had spent her whole life dangling from strings that Red had held in his hands. That had burned like acid in her soul.

She knew he cared for her. Cared about her. She could admit to caring about him easily enough, but now she was seeing the lie of her own making in full close-up. She didn't "care" about Raymond Reddington. She loved him. He made her angry and sad and insane, but he also made her think, gave her agency in the life that he had mostly designed himself. Neither of them was perfect, but they were of the same cloth.

So here she was in the bitter light of early morning, praying that the manipulative man she loved was going to make it through this. Because if he didn't, she wasn't sure she wanted to either.

"All I have, all I need,

He's the air I would kill to breathe..."

"Breathe Again" Sara Bareilles


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This is not very Red/Lizzie fluffy, but the idea wouldn't go away. Hope you enjoy anyway.

* * *

It had been a good session; she had vented some of her grief about Red being hurt, talked about the stress of having to work without him. She was feeling lighter now, with some of that weight off her chest. The therapist's next question takes her by surprise though.

"You've always discussed Red, as you call him, as an adversary. Sometimes almost an enemy. You know he is holding back information from you. And nothing you seem to say will convince him to reveal it. But in the last few sessions, you seem almost fond of him. As though being injured brought him down to your level, a mere mortal. Would you say that your feelings about Red, and about his presence in your life, have changed somewhat?"

Lizzie's mind reels. Pinwheels over what she's told the doctor over the last weeks. She doesn't like it, but she makes herself stop and consider it. To consider how she really feels about the man who has torn her life apart since he appeared like an archangel of Death. She thinks part of her was intrigued and captivated by him, charm and violence living harmoniously in the same being. She told herself he was just an interesting study of a criminal mind. She knew that was a lie. She had told him once that she cared about him, but the second he failed to give her what she demanded, she turned on him like a rabid dog. Not exactly the behavior of a balanced human psyche.

"I don't know if they've changed but maybe I've grown up enough to accept them for what they are. Not what I've told myself they should be. Not what I want them to be, to make myself more comfortable. I was drawn to him from the beginning, and despite reality collapsing around me, I am still drawn to him."

"So would you consider Reddington attractive Liz?"

Lizzie has a brief debate, she hasn't been seeing this therapist very long, but she liked her. Here, at least, no one would be judging what she said or how she said it.

"I don't know that attractive is the word I would use. Magnetic, perhaps. He can be in a room with a handful of men, most of whom are taller and younger; but he is all I can see. It's not just the three piece suits or the fedora; it's this density of personality he has. I think of Reddington like a black hole. He has so much pull, so much gravity, that nothing can escape it."

"Not even you?"

"Especially not me."

And there was the truth, Lizzie mused. She had been caught in his event horizon since he came into her life. Crushed everything and tore it apart. But in the end, what was left was pure and untainted by any doubt or fear. She jogged down the steps from the therapist's office to her car. Red's safe house was less than fifteen minutes away, maybe it was time to let gravity do the work.


	3. Chapter 3

This was a joint effort between me and another gutterbug (she knows). No beta here, and a little esoteric but I hope you enjoy it all the same.

* * *

Lizzie felt the pull of his field of attraction in her blood, in her bones. How someone held harmless, restrained hand and foot to a chair still compel her so strongly? It was chaos and he was her strange attractor. If possible, he seemed more dangerous; all of that potential, not just for violence and sex, but secrets and much more frightening, the possibility of being known.

He waited for her to approach. The certainty of being unable to hide behind her usual guards, being unable to distract him from that which she didn't want seen made her reluctant. When his lips parted, she found herself watching for his tongue, the secret details of his teeth, something to account for the heat flowing through her body as he drew a long breath and she waited, riveted, for the exhale.

She felt her own lungs seize with the effort to mirror his breathing pattern. Her posture shifted in the chair, became more open like his. It was a reflex she couldn't stop as she felt his eyes follow the lines of her body as her legs opened a bit more to allow her ankles to press back to the chair legs.

They regarded each other across the empty air between them, unsure if they were allies or enemy combatants. His eyes gleamed with challenge, come and see if I'm as bad as you think. Very slowly, she closed her knees, allowing her eyes to travel with deliberate insolence up his bound body, knowing he couldn't mimic her movement. She allowed the flavor of power to roll across her palate, both her own and that which radiated from him in waves.

It was the moment of pure chaos the moment of destruction of the old and the emergence of the new order. This was the tipping point. So her scar became the butterfly effect, the locus of Fate. She had no idea if it was wise to approach; a wild animal is still wild, even when chained. But she was on her feet and across the floor before she could think it through, because in the end the laws of attraction would win.

"Agent Keen, what a pleasure."

It had begun.


End file.
